Solar farm and battery emerge from rhombus of regret with bank finance and a construction plan

A company with a storied name in Australian solar has had a win in Victoria, reaching financial close for a long proposed solar farm and an accompanying big battery. 

Recurrent Energy has signed off on the financial close for its now 171 megawatt (MW) Carwarp Energy Park, with the solar farm to be built first, followed by the 120 MW battery energy storage system (BESS), the duration of which is yet to be set. 

The project is expected to start commercial operations in 2026. 

The solar and BESS project is in a region of Victoria that was once known only for its difficulties in getting solar farms connected, the ominously named ‘rhombus of regret’ in the state’s north-west. 

It will be financed by ANZ, Westpac, and Société Générale’s Sydney branch, thanks to “a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with a multinational corporate offtaker”, according to the company.

The project will connect into a 220 kV overhead transmission line and consist of 243,000 Canadian Solar modules, delivering enough electricity to power approximately 88,000 households.

Pushed out, but still here

Recurrent Energy has been operating in Australia for well over a decade. It was bought by Japanese company Sharp in 2010 for $US305 million and proceeded to build a pipeline of 1.5 GW of projects in Australia alone. 

But as the government of Tony Abbott picked apart and undermined the renewables industry, that portfolio became less of a crown jewel than a liability.

By 2014 the company’s country chief Colin Liebmann closed their Australian office because the policy environment was so toxic.

In 2015, Sharp sold Recurrent Energy to Canadian Solar, which still owns it today, for the discounted price of $US265 million. The price was said to reflect the sour taste of the Australian portfolio. 

The Carwarp project was also a victim of the policy inaction.

Canadian Solar, which remained in Australia, secured a deal from the Victorian government in 2018 guaranteeing revenue for all of the then-100MW solar park’s output during a contracted period of 15 years. It was supposed to start construction in 2019 and be ready to go in 2020.

But this was the peak ‘rhombus of regret’ era, when the area’s weak grid meant wind and solar farms were seeing huge levels of curtailment or major delays in winning grid connections.

Canadian Solar in 2021 won a $270,000 ARENA grant to test whether adding a BESS plus grid forming inverters to its expanded 150 MW solar project might be a solution. The project is being managed directly by the now wholly owned Recurrent Energy.

The companies developed the 191 MW Suntop Solar farm near Dubbo in New South Wales (NSW) in 2022, which was sold with an offtake agreement with Amazon.

It’s planning a 240 MWh BESS at Gunnedah – not the same one as the 120 MW / 480 MWh Gunnedah East BESS by Green Leap which is in the NSW planning process now – and a 360 MW Sundown solar farm with a 150 MW BESS.